


These Days I'm Fine (No, These Days, I Tend To Lie)

by novel_concept26



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:11:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novel_concept26/pseuds/novel_concept26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay so maybe they won't kick you out of the Bellas if you start dating a Treblemaker, but that doesn't mean they won't give you a little flack about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Days I'm Fine (No, These Days, I Tend To Lie)

  
So, it turns out that maybe hooking up with a Treblemaker isn’t the _worst_ thing you can do—anymore, now that they’ve kicked some serious acapella ass, with Beca helming the onslaught of awesome. That gets just a little slack cut, even where Aubrey is concerned, which is cool. Cooler than she ever would have imagined, because Aubrey is a raging bileduct of lunacy when it comes to the Bellas, and for half a second there, Beca was reasonably certain she wasn’t going to make it out of her admission alive.

If nothing else, she was prepared to fend off a potentially blacked eye.

But, somehow—and she gets the feeling it’s the weight of a first-place trophy on Aubrey’s mantle that does it, more than any true camaraderie—the blow never comes. Aubrey only squints at her from beneath a tumbling wave of freshly-styled blonde hair and says, “Hmm,” in a way Beca’s not positive she likes.

But, again: it’s not a black eye. And no one pointed her toward the whole chair-dragging-out-the-door bit, so—she’ll take what she can get.

Even if _what she can get_ turns out to be a cherished place at the head of one of the dorkiest clubs in a school she’s still not insanely sure she wants to stay at. But one thing at a time. For now, she’s a winner, and it’s sort of the first time she can say that with any real confidence, _and_ she’s got a really sweet guy bringing her flowers and frustratingly “classic” DVDs every other night, so—yeah. It could be worse.

Especially with Aubrey giving her this sideways smile, kind of awkward and tilted and maybe just a hair more psychotic than Beca’s used to, but nice enough. Nicer than the swearing and the huffing and that crimson-faced expression she used to wear—the one that looked more or less like a human volcano inches from decimating a small village.

Yeah. This is better.

Even if her cool points have hit the Never Gonna Sneak Back Into The Yard marker on the scale.

***

She should know something’s up on Tuesday when she drags ass into rehearsal just a few minutes later than usual. Not that these rehearsals are crazy-necessary—mostly just crazy, truth be told; Aubrey doesn’t seem to have an off switch—now that the season is over, but whatever. These are the best friends she’s ever had, and if seeing them means a little extra singing and a bit of jazz-handing around the room—

“What?” she demands. They’re all assembled, seated in their usual chairs with their hands clasped in their laps. Little baby-faced choir angels, by the looks of them.

She doesn’t trust it for a second.

“ _What_?” she repeats when Chloe’s pretty smile ratchets up a notch. Sure, she’s late, but they’ve grown used to a little tardiness here and there: Stacie running late from a nail appointment, or Fat Amy oversleeping, or Lilly off doing things they’re all better off not concerning themselves with. It used to spin Aubrey’s head in a beautifully executed 360, but these days, it hasn’t been much of a problem.

And, anyway, it’s not like they can _tell_ where she was. Or who she was with. Or for how long.

Can they?

“We’re just _so_ glad to see you,” Chloe drawls, in a voice that instantly sets Beca’s skin prickling. Low, and kind of husky, and not at all comforting. She’s got something up the sleeve of that classy designer blouse, and Beca wants no part of it.

“Yeah,” Cynthia pipes up from the next chair over. “We _missed_ you.”

“Sure,” Beca replies slowly, letting her bag drop onto the piano lid. “Sure, you did.”

“ _Totally_ ,” Amy insists through a pearly smile. Beca tries not to be intensely discomfited by the borderline-flirtatious wiggle of Stacie’s fingers in her direction. She fails.

“You know you saw me yesterday,” she informs them broadly, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. She’s wearing one of Jesse’s high school t-shirts beneath her usual flannel, the scrawled white eagle spreading its wings across burgundy cotton. It suddenly feels like an awful wardrobe choice.

And not just because of the way Chloe’s eyes angle away for a fraction of a second, her smile dipping out of focus.

“We’re glad you made it,” Aubrey cuts in before she can wonder too much about the shift in her usually-bubbly friend’s demeanor. “We have something for you.”

That’s enough to jerk Beca’s attention back around again, because _that_ is the old Aubrey smile: the one tinged with crystal, the one she used to extend through bared teeth each time Beca tried to help the team change. The old Aubrey smile has never, ever brought good fortune along with it, and when coupled with the other girls clambering to their feet, each and every last one of them wearing identical hyena grins…

“No,” she says, waving her hands spastically to ward them off. “No, nope, whatever it is, I’m vetoing.”

“You can’t veto,” Aubrey insists sweetly. Beca’s mouth opens and closes.

“I’m captain!” she cries desperately. “Captain’s rights!”

“We haven’t officially passed the torch yet,” Aubrey interrupts, taking her by the elbow and squeezing. “There’s an oath.”

 _Of course there is._ With Aubrey, there’s always some kind of oath—and ritual—and palm-slicing—

“Just have a seat,” Chloe is telling her, an arm looping around her waist like it belongs there. She shivers as long fingertips brush skin beneath the hem of her t-shirt. Chloe, it seems, always has a way of getting to her, even with the simplest of motions.

Which only serves to make this whole thing more terrifying.

“This isn’t necessary,” she half-babbles, lowering herself dutifully into a chair and wrapping her ankles stiffly around its legs. “You already thanked me for putting the set together. A lot. Too much thanking, really. There were gifts.”

“This is a _different_ kind of gift,” Chloe tells her, and _oh_ _god_ , it’s going to be an orgy. An orgy wth singing and Chloe seeing her naked again, and she loves these girls to death, but if she has to see Fat Amy going anywhere _near_ lady parts, she just might—

“You know,” Chloe says, almost conversationally, with her arm propped upon Beca’s shoulder. “Jesse is a friend.”

She tilts her head back, suspicious. “What’s that now?”

“Yeah,” Cynthia replies, ignoring her entirely. “I know he’s been a good friend—“

“—of mine.” Stacie winks, and for one jarring second, Beca is positive her new boyfriend has at some point gotten this beautiful, remarkably batty girl pregnant.

“But lately,” Aubrey says, whipping her attention around to where their former captain is almost lazily inspecting her fingernails, “something’s changed, and it ain’t hard to define.”

Oh _god_.

“Jesse’s got himself a girl,” Chloe husks, clapping both hands down on Beca’s shoulders and smirking. “And you know—I think I want to make her mine.”

She throws her head back, already laughing, and they’re off: Cynthia holding down the bass, Lilly and the others filling in the background around smiles so bright, she’s sure they’ll crack. Aubrey is snapping her fingers in time, firing this look down the way that’s half-amused, half-threatening—like, if Beca tries to look away or make a break for it, she just might tackle her ass in response.

And then there’s Chloe. Chloe’s running lead, her voice strong and smooth like she’s never heard the word _node_ in her life, and she sounds _incredible_. Incredible in a weird way, actually, and Beca can’t quite pin down the reason for it. She’s used to Chloe’s singing, the way the notes bounce and trickle and dance around the room until it’s all she can focus on. She loves it in the context of a competition, and she loves it when they’re just bumming around late at night, just jamming out for the hell of it. Chloe’s voice is killer.

(In truth, she loves it just about everywhere except the showers. Chloe has developed this semi-frustrating habit of showing up to the bathroom every night just as Beca is arriving—regardless of that time fluctuating across the board—with her arms full of hair care products and her smile beaming. Chloe’s a little bizarre that way.)

She cranes her neck, peering up and up and trying to figure it out as Chloe’s fingers squeeze her shoulders and release. Sure, she sounds fantastic, and that certainly isn’t news, but—

It dawns on her: the other girls aren’t _trying_. Aubrey’s barely humming along, more intent on a wolfish smile that makes Beca feel decidedly like a prisoner on the chopping block, and the others are cavorting mindlessly around each other like idiots. Amy catches hold of Lilly around the waist and twirls her into an awkward dip, all but dropping her on her head when Stacie gooses her from behind. They’re not actively working to sound good—or even to stay on pitch, where Stacie is concerned—and it’s making the whole performance even more ridiculous than it was in the first place.

Except for Chloe, who has released her and is now standing dead in front of her chair, voice low and sultry as she hums out, “You know I feel so dirty when they start talkin’ cute…I wanna tell her that I love her, but the point is probably—“

Her lips are still smirking, cool as can be, and her palm bops relentlessly off of her thigh to keep time. Beca can’t help but give her full attention to the image, feeling strangely like she did in that first shower, when Chloe and all her manic crazy came slipping in behind her. It’s like she can’t look away, like Chloe’s got her pinned there with her voice, and her eyes, and her sheer brazen confidence.

The eye contact is beginning to feel awkward; she shivers, folding her arms across her chest and pasting on a scowl she doesn’t feel. Chloe continues on with the “I wish that I had Jesse’s girl; where can I find a woman like that?” bit, the one that seems to surge through Beca’s veins for no reason whatsoever.

“Idiots,” she forces herself to blurt, shaking her head. “You’re all idiots.”

“We’re _your_ idiots,” Stacie announces, abandoning her harmonies entirely to drape her whole torso around Beca’s shoulders. She winces against the pressure of over-large breasts mashed against her cheek and tries to wiggle free.

“Get off!”

She should be able to shake her focus, what with Stacie’s boobs climbing all over her face and everything—not to mention Amy’s off-kilter air-guitaring and Aubrey’s all-work-and-no-play smile—but something about Chloe has her stuck. She’s rapidly approaching the cimax of the song, hitting the bit about looking in the mirror all the time, wondering what Jesse’s girl doesn’t see in her, and there’s just something about her smile that seems…

It’s not reaching her eyes, Beca realizes all at once even as she shoves ineffectually at Stacie again and spits out a mouthful of dark hair. Chloe is the kind of girl who smiles with her whole body; when she’s happy, it’s in a toe tapping, fingers wiggling, whole-body shudder sort of way. You couldn’t miss Chloe’s joy from a freakin’ airplane—and yet, standing here now with her belt stretching toward the ceiling, she doesn’t look _happy_. There’s something else there, lurking in sharp eyes, like she’s reading Beca cover to cover—and like she can’t quite settle on liking what she sees.

“I wish that I had Jesse’s girl,” Cynthia chimes in, raising her chin and fluttering her eyelashes in Beca’s direction.

“I want, I want Jesse’s girl,” Aubrey agrees, the ice finally smoothing from her smile. Amy moves as though to scoop her up, bridal style, and roars with laughter when Aubrey shrieks and trips over herself trying to get away.

“Jesse’s girl,” Chloe rounds out to the accompanying sound of silence as the rest of the girls dissolve into soundless giggles. She tips her head back and exhales, hands on her hips, giving Beca a break at last from their unwavering staring contest. She looks tired, strangely, like goofing around and singing cheesy oldies is on par with running a full marathon. Beca raises an eyebrow.

“That was…charming,” she drones in her most sarcastic tone—the one she generally reserves for the Step-Beast on holidays—and flashes an award-winning smile to top it off. Stacie claps her hands together.

“We _so_ have to do that for Regionals next year!”

“We’ll work on it,” Beca promises dryly. Chloe is looking at her again, serious-eyed though her grin is fitted back upon her face. The bold confidence is gone, replaced by something new and uninvited. It’s making her uncomfortable in a bone-deep sort of way, like there’s something wrong here she should have noticed months ago.

“I hope,” Aubrey sniffs teasingly, “that teaches you a lesson about your choice in men.”

“Oh, yes,” Beca retorts, hands pressed firmly to her knees, “ _that_ did it. Nothing like a little Rick Astley to demolish a budding romance.”

“Rick _Springfield_ ,” Aubrey corrects witheringly, even as Stacie and Cynthia grab at each other and burst into a rousing chorus of _Never Gonna Give You Up_. Aubrey rolls her eyes. “Now look what you’ve done.”

Beca makes a show of shrugging, pleased when Aubrey finds herself trapped between their giddily-belting teammates, who promptly throttle her from side to side.

“You better have enjoyed that,” Amy grouses, flopping down in the chair beside her and sighing dramatically. “Captain Crazypants over there kept us here ‘til 4:30 this morning putting it all together.”

“It shows,” Beca informs her as grandly as she can manage. Amy winks.

They’re all such dorks, these friends of hers, and she loves them—but there’s still Chloe, standing just a little off to the side with her eyes fixed on Beca’s sneakers. Zoning out is perfectly fine, except that isn’t something Chloe _does_ , and it’s making Beca more than mildly nervous.

She has to wait for some of the chaos to die down—and for Amy to stop ranting about her need for beauty sleep, come hell or Treblemaker—before she can actively pull Chloe aside. Despite this fact, it’s startlingly easy to do, mainly because Chloe never really manages to wind herself back into the group in the first place; she remains where she is, smiling that awkwardly-tight smile and not saying a word.

This just keeps getting scarier and scarier.

“Hey.” Beca hesitantly pulls at her elbow, still feeling sort of weird about the whole physical contact thing. Chloe glances up like she somehow didn’t expect anyone to notice her, eyes far away.

“Hm?”

“I just…said hi,” Beca mumbles. Chloe is normally the easiest person in the world to get along with, but right now, her wearily vacant expression is making Beca feel all of three years old for interrupting. The age-old itch to shrug back into herself threatens to rear up; she forces it back. “That was some song.”

Chloe arches an eyebrow. “You like?”

“Loved,” Beca tells her, with slightly more sincerity than before, because Chloe’s performance really was awesome. If a bit off-putting, what with the staring and the clearly not being Chloe-like at all.

“What’s up?” she asks when Chloe remains uncharacteristically quiet. Her eyes dart back to the group—who appear to be engaged in a heated Gaga-vs-Adele debate, leaving them safe to talk in private. She leans closer, fingers loosening around the crook of Chloe’s arm and sliding down to her wrist. “You seem off.”

“I’m great,” Chloe says without quite meeting her eye. Beca shakes her head.

“Want to go for a walk?" No answer. She makes an executive decision on the grounds of _almost captain_. "We’re going for a walk.”

Chloe must really be having a shitty day, because she has to just about _drag_ the girl across the rehearsal room to the door. She’s never had to drag Chloe anywhere at all, except out of her room when the clock chimes three and she desperately needs to crash.

“What gives?” she asks when they’re outside, Chloe’s hands rooted in her pockets and her gaze stretching down the street. “You’re acting like me. It’s sort of freaking me out.”

“I’m good,” Chloe says, which, while clearly still a lie, at least seems more accurate than _great_. Beca snaps her fingers a few times reflexively, humming that stupid song under her breath.

“I’m never forgiving you,” she says, mostly to break the silence. Chloe’s head snaps up, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. Beca smiles. “For getting that song stuck in my head. You know it’ll be there for, like, weeks, right?”

Chloe’s expression softens. “That was the idea. Aubrey’s, to be clear. She was all, ‘There’s a sacred oath, we can’t just let it go unpunished’, yada yada.”

“What will we do without her next year?” Beca wonders, half-serious. Chloe shrugs, and it hits her for the first time: “Oh god, what will we do without _you_?”

Is _that_ what’s got Chloe so tied in knots: the fact that she’s graduating? It would be enough, Beca guesses, to send most people into a tizzy. Chloe 's usually above stuff like that, but maybe she isn't so totally pep-and-cheer immune to real life problems as Beca thought.

“You’ll manage,” Chloe says, like she couldn’t care less. Beca frowns.

“Okay, seriously. Freaking me out.”

“I’m—“ Chloe sighs, stops, scuffs one foot against the concrete. “Just worried about you.”

Beca laughs. “Worried about what? I’m great. Look at me, I’m a social butterfly these days.” She pauses, brow creasing. “Eugh, which is maybe cause for worry all on its own.”

Chloe isn’t smiling. She’s staring down at the ground, breathing through her teeth like each inhalation is causing her physical pain, and Beca thinks she sees something like tears reflected in normally-gleaming eyes. She catches hold of Chloe’s sleeve.

“Hey. Talk to me?”

She’s pretty sure that’s what girls say when they’re having concerned girl-talk; she’s heard Chloe say it to Aubrey enough times in the middle of a meltdown. Is this what Chloe looks like in a meltdown of her own?

(If so, Beca is getting off remarkably easy. When Aubrey falls into a state that involves tears and stoicism, it usually escalates into flailing and nonsensical father-related rants within a three-minute span.)

“You’re dating a Treblemaker,” Chloe blurts out without looking up. “And no one is going to bere here to—“ She hesitates, then blunders on carelessly. “No one is going to be here to look out for you.”

Beca blinks at her, utterly baffled. “You think someone needs to look out for me?”

“I know you don’t want to hear it.” Now that she’s talking, Chloe seems intent on powering through, no matter what. “But he’s a Treblemaker, and he’s a _guy_ , and you just—you deserve—you deserve someone—“

She fumbles and falls silent, jaw twitching. Beca waits.

“You deserve someone better,” Chloe mumbles at last, her cheeks scarlet and clashing horribly with her hair. Beca smiles as gently as she can.

“Jesse’s not like those other guys. He’s a sweetheart. He likes old records, and bad movies, and—he’s not like them. Okay?”

Chloe says nothing. Awkwardly, uneasily, Beca slips her arms around the other girl’s shoulders and holds on tight.

“I can take care of myself,” she whispers, strangely touched by Chloe’s madness. “Promise.”

Chloe sags into her, fingers winding around the fabric of her shirt and sticking there. Her breath tickles the hair around Beca’s neck, her chest pressing in and out systematically against the eagle patterned across her shirt. She feels, for a moment, like a child too terrified to let go.

She feels like someone with a secret burning deep down, like she's inches from spitting it out and setting herself free.

Whatever it is, it never comes. Her hands drop from Beca's shirt and she steps back, smiling a forced, plastic version of her usual grin. “Holding you to that,” she says, squeezing Beca’s hand once and releasing. Beca smiles.

“I’ll send you updates,” she promises. “Skype is glorious, you’ll see. It’ll be like you’re right here with me.”

There’s something about the way Chloe nods—like she doesn’t believe, or like she’s not even listening—that makes it hard to feel proud of the way she’s handled this situation. It still feels as though she’s missing something huge, something gaping, a hole they’re shuffling awkwardly around the edge of. She wonders what would happen if they were to fall in, and what could be waiting for them down there in the dark.

Something pulls at her, the strangest sense that the answer lies in the fervent way Chloe watched her while pouring her soul into the lyrics of “Jessie’s Girl.” But that answer wouldn’t make sense. Not for Chloe. Not for her. There’s just no way. She would have known before now, would have tasted it on Chloe’s smile, on the way her fingertips catch on her sleeve for no reason at all, on the way she insists upon always being there, no matter what Beca might need her for. She would have _known_.

Wouldn’t she?

"So, that's it? We're good?" she pushes, hoping with some slightly-crazed corner of her heart that Chloe will reel back the fake grin and the half-hearted shrug and tell her the truth. Whatever this something is, floating around them, it's enormous, and deadly, and could be put to rest if only Chloe would just  _speak_ \--

But all Chloe does is knock against her shoulder, her eyes distant, and say, "You know it, Jesse's Girl." And then she's turning back, arms swinging, looking for all the world like she's running away from Beca and whatever  _this_  is, twisted and anxious, between them.

She rubs her jaw, watching Chloe trundle back toward the rehearsal space, and gets the distinct impression that having girl friends is possibly the hardest, mostly frustrating thing she has ever dealt with in her life.

She really is no good at this.  
  



End file.
